Technique for providing a reliable trust indicator to a webpage

ABSTRACT

A technique is provided for providing a trust indicator for a particular webpage. The trust indicator may indicate whether publishers of web content and/or end-users trust the content of the particular webpage and whether the particular webpage is popular. A user requests, via a web browser a webpage to be displayed. A process associated with the webpage requests a value to be displayed along with the webpage. The value may indicate 1) a number of links that link to the webpage, 2) a number of user-created tags that have been associated with the webpage, or 3) a trust rank that a web crawler associates with the webpage. A trust rank may be based, at least in part, on user-created tags that have been associated with the webpage. A value may also be associated with an advertisement that is displayed along with a particular webpage.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to providing a trust indicator for awebpage that indicates whether publishers of web content and/orend-users trust the content of the webpage.

BACKGROUND

A web counter or hit counter is a computer software program thatindicates the number of visitors, or hits, a particular webpage hasreceived. Once set up, these counters are incremented every time thewebpage is accessed by a user's web browser. Because the number of acounter is a proxy for popularity of the associated webpage (i.e. thehigher the count the more visitors), webmasters tended to place webcounters on their webpages to advertise this popularity, hoping thatfuture users would also trust and frequently visit their websites.

However, web counters have fallen out of favor of webmasters (and users)in the last few years for several reasons. For example, web counters arenot necessarily trustworthy. A webmaster could start the counter at ahigh number to give the impression that the corresponding webpage ismore popular than it actually is, or increment the counter by an integergreater than one. Also, web counters are no longer associated with theimpression of professional web design but rather are considered by someas a gimmicky feature. Furthermore, web counters are limited to the“visits” of end-users and do not take into account what other publishersof web content “think” about a particular webpage or website.

Thus, currently there is no efficient and trustworthy mechanism thatindicates the trust that publishers of web content and/or end-usersattribute to a particular webpage or website. Also, there is noefficient mechanism for a webmaster to determine how well the webmasteris doing in terms of marketing his/her content other than the sales ofthe webmaster's product or service and/or advertisement revenue.

The approaches described in this section are approaches that could bepursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previouslyconceived or pursued. Therfore, unless otherwise indicated, it shouldnot be assumed that any of the approaches described in this sectionqualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in thissection.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is illustrated by way of example, and not by wayof limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings and in whichlike reference numerals refer to similar elements and in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagram that illustrates a badge that contains a valueindicating the popularity of a webpage, according to an embodiment ofthe invention;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart that illustrates steps for providing link or taginformation pertaining to a particular webpage to a web browser,according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a diagram that illustrates how link information pertaining toa particular webpage may be displayed, according to an embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 4 is a diagram that illustrates a “cloud of information” that arebased on certain keywords corresponding to particular webpage to bedisplayed, according to an embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a computer system on which embodiments ofthe invention may be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerousspecific details are set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however,that the present invention may be practiced without these specificdetails. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shownin block diagram form in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring thepresent invention.

Overview

A technique is described for providing a value to a webpage in order toindicate how popular (and thus how trustworthy) end-users and/orpublishers of web content consider the webpage to be. Inquiry into thevalue may further indicate, in addition to popularity, how end-users andweb publishers view the content on the webpage or the correspondingwebsite.

A webmaster may place executable code in the source HTML code of awebpage. When the HTML code is loaded into an end-user's browser, thebrowser executes the executable code. The execution causes a request tobe made to an entity (such as Yahoo!TM) associated with a web crawler.The entity returns a value which the web browser displays along with thewebpage that is loaded. The displayed value may be any, all, or acombination of the following: 1) a number of links from linking webpagesthat link to the displayed webpage, 2) a number of user-created tagsthat have been associated with the displayed webpage, or 3) a trust rankof the displayed webpage. The trust rank is based, at least in part, onuser-created tags that have been associated with the displayed webpage.With this value, webmasters and end-users have a more accurateunderstanding of whether the displayed webpage is popular and whetherother end-users and/or web publishers consider the displayed webpagetrustworthy.

In one approach, a clickable item is also provided to the web browser.The value itself may be a clickable item that, when selected, initiatesa second request to be sent to the entity associated with the webcrawler. In response to the second request, a new page is provided thatcontains a subset of the links (if the value is a number of links)and/or a subset of the tags (if the value is a number of tags). Withthis further information, webmasters and end-users have a comprehensiveand accurate view of how other end-users and web publishers view thedisplayed webpage. By viewing the webpages that link to the displayedwebpage, an end-user can validate whether the listed links arelegitimate, and thus can better determine whether the displayed webpageis legitimate. By viewing tags (i.e. user-created words or phrases thatdescribe content of a webpage) that end-users have associated with thedisplayed webpage, a webmaster can understand how end-users view thecontent of the displayed webpage and make decisions regarding the futureof the displayed webpage or website accordingly.

Tags

A tag is a keyword, label, or descriptive term associated with an itemas a means of classification. Tags are usually chosen informally andpersonally by a user of the item. For example, a user discovers awebpage that discusses Indian cooking. The user creates a tag thatassociates one or more words with the webpage, such as “Indian cooking”.

Thus, tags are not usually part of a formally defined classificationscheme. Tags are typically used in dynamic, flexible, automaticallygenerated Internet taxonomies for online resources such as computerfiles, web pages, digital images, and Internet bookmarks. Some users usetags as an alternative to the “Bookmark” option provided by the majorweb browsers.

Typically, an item will have one or more tags associated with it, aspart of an automated classification software or system. MyWeb (providedby Yahoo!™) and Del.icio.us are popular social bookmarking sites thatprovide an automated classification system. These tags may bemachine-generated or relevant suggestions from other users. The systemprovides links to other items that share that keyword tag, or even tospecified collections of tags. This allows for multiple “browseablepaths” through the items which can quickly and easily be altered by thecollection's administrator, with minimal effort and planning. These tagsalso allow for the retrieval of content via search beyond the contentsof the documents themselves.

Trackback Badge

According to an embodiment, a webmaster places a “badge” on any or allwebpages of a website. The badge contains one or more values. Codeassociated with the badge may, when executed, cause the web browser torequest and receive the value(s) from a remote server on the Internet.

An example of code that is associated with the badge may be thefollowing:

<script>   function cb(o)document.getElementById(“tbsn”).innerHTML =  o.ResultSet.totalResultsAvailable;} var url =   location.href; var so= document.createElement(“script”);   so.setAttribute(“src”,  “http://api.search.yahoo.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/  inlinkData?appid=ytrackback&query=”+url+   “&results=1&output=json&callback=cb”);   document. getElementsByTagName(“head”).item(0).-  appendChild(so);   document.write(“<a  href=‘http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=“ + url +  ”&bwm=i’>”); </script> <span style=“background:#fff;padding:1px; font-family:Geneva,Vera,Arial,Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:x-small;font-variant:small-caps;; padding: 3px 1px 3px 1px;border:1pxsolid #aaa;”>   <span id=“tbsn”  style=“color:#f8f8f8;background:#a42;padding:2px 3px 2px   3px;”>0  </span>   <span style=“color:#f8f8f8;background:#886;padding:2px 5px  2px 4px;”>Y! TrackBacks   </span> </span></a>

The value(s) may include 1) a number of links that link to a webpage, 2)a number of user-created tags that have been associated with thewebsite, or 3) a trust rank that is based, at least in part, onuser-created tags that have been associated with the webpage. This badgeallows the webmaster and end-users to gauge what other end-users and/orweb publishers think of the corresponding webpage, and how authoritativethe page is.

In one embodiment, a badge is implemented using the Yahoo! DeveloperNetwork JSON APIs and Cascade Style Sheet (CSS), which is a W3Crecommendation. However, any mechanism may be used for providing thebadge to a web browser displaying the webpage. If the JSON APIs and pureCSS are used, then a webmaster is not required to write any code inorder to enable the badge on a webpage. The “look and feel” of the badgemay be customized freely.

FIG. 1 is a diagram that illustrates a badge 108 that contains a valueindicating the popularity of a webpage 106, according to an embodimentof the invention. A user enters a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) 104into the search field of web browser 102. When the website correspondingto URL 104 is accessed, web browser 102 executes the code associatedwith badge 108. The executed code causes a request to be made to anentity (e.g., Yahoo!™) associated with a web crawler. The entity returnsone or more values indicating the popularity of webpage 106. Thevalue(s) may be sent toward the server hosting the website associatedwith URL 104, which forwards the value toward web browser 102 to bedisplayed, or the value may be sent toward web browser 102 without beingsent toward the aforementioned server. In this example, the valueindicated by badge 108 is 148. This value may indicate a number of linksfrom linking webpages that link to webpage 106 or the value may indicatea number of user-created tags that have been associated with URL 104 todescribe the content of webpage 106.

In one embodiment, the value indicated by the badge is updatedautomatically when the number of links and/or tags changes or when thetrust rank changes. Thus, the end-user and webmaster are ensured to haveup-to-the-minute accurate information about what web publishers and/orend-users think about the displayed webpage.

Site Explorer

In one embodiment, the badge is a clickable item that, when selected,causes a new page to be generated at a remote server and sent to thebrowser. This new page will be referred to hereinafter as “SiteExplorer”. Site Explorer may be generated in a new window or in thewindow that currently displays the displayed webpage. Site Explorer maylist at least a subset of the links if the value contained in the badgeindicates a number of links. Alternatively, if the value indicates anumber of tags, then the Site Explorer may list at least a subset of thetags. Alternatively, Site Explorer may list both links and tags.

In one embodiment, the badge does not include a value. Instead, thebadge is a clickable graphic that, when selected, causes Site Explorerto be generated and displayed to the user that selected the badge.

In one embodiment, the appearance of the badge may be changedautomatically (i.e. without refreshing the webpage). For example, thebadge may be color-coded based on the trust value or popularity value,such as the number of tags. As another example, the value may changeautomatically from indicating the number of links to the number of tagsto a trust rank. One way to implement dynamically modifying theappearance of badge is to include code (e.g. javascript) that, whenexecuted, periodically calls the entity (that provides the value to thebadge) to modify the appearance of the badge. In the future, if theentity decides to change the appearance of the badge, such as the textof the badge, then the webmaster of the webpage does not have to alterthe badge himself.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart that illustrates steps for providing link or taginformation pertaining to a particular webpage to a web browser,according to an embodiment of the invention. A request is received froma process associated with a particular webpage. The request is todisplay a clickable item (e.g. badge) on the particular webpage. Theclickable item is provided to be displayed on said particular webpage.An indication is received that the clickable item has been selected. Inresponse to the indication, a new page is provided to be displayed thatcontains (a) URLs corresponding to a subset of linking webpages thatcontain a link to the particular webpage, (b) a subset of user-createdtags that have been associated with the particular webpage, and/or (c)other information relevant to the particular webpage.

Link Information

FIG. 3 is a diagram that illustrates how Site Explorer may display linkinformation 304 pertaining to a URL 302 in a web browser 310, accordingto an embodiment of the invention. In this example, URL 302 ishttp://www.iitdef.org. Link information 304 includes Uniform ResourceLocators (URLs) of webpages that contain links to URL 302. Restrictions306 may restrict the URLs specified in link information 304. SiteExplorer may also include an expansion option 308 that allows a user orwebmaster of URL 302 to view link information 304 pertaining to allwebpages associated with the website of URL 302, as opposed to just thewebpage of URL 302.

The links in link information 304 may be ordered based on which linkswere most recently-created. Alternatively (or in addition to creationtime), the order of links in Site Explorer may be based on the trustrank of the webpages that link to the displayed webpage. A trust rank ofa particular webpage is determined by the entity (e.g. Yahoo!TM) thatresponds to the initial request for the value. A trust rank of aparticular webpage may be based on multiple factors that may include,but are not limited to, a) a number of webpages that link to theparticular webpage, b) what type of webpages link to the particularwebpage (e.g. whether they are spam sites), c) a number of user-createdtags that have been associated with the particular webpage, d) contentof the particular webpage, and e) the category/topic of the particularwebpage.

In one embodiment, for each link displayed in Site Explorer, additionalinformation is displayed. The additional information may include thelink's anchor text. Anchor text is the visible text in a link and tendsto be highly relevant to the “landing page”. The additional informationmay alternatively (or also) include “surrounding text” that surrounds(or is adjacent to) the link and/or anchor text.

The additional information may include a “cloud of information” that isbased on a set of keywords corresponding to the displayed webpage, asshown in FIG. 4. The set of keywords may include an aggregate of theanchor text of links that link to the displayed webpage. The set ofkeywords may also include (or alternatively include) all or a subset ofthe user-created tags that have been associated with the displayedwebpage. FIG. 4 illustrates a web browser 402 displaying tag informationpertaining to URL 404, which is http://www.cnn.com in this example. Whena link 410, displayed via web browser 402, is selected, the “cloud ofinformation” (or aggregated tag view 412) is displayed. The tagsspecified in aggregated tag view 412 may pertain to at least a subset ofuser-created tags that have been associated with just URL 404.Alternatively, the tags specified in aggregated tag view 412 may pertainto some of the other webpages associated with URL 404, such ashttp://www.cnn.com/health and http://www.cnn.com/weather.

In one embodiment, the number of links indicated by the badge isdetermined by crawling the entire searchable World Wide Web.Alternatively, the number of links indicated by the badge may berestricted in some manner. For example, the number of links may berestricted to only shopping sites, non-spam sites, a list of sitesspecified by the webmaster of the displayed webpage, etc. The number oflinks may indicate what webpages or websites not to include in thevalue. In other words, the number of links may be restricted fromcertain sites, such as sites owned or administered by the webmaster ofthe displayed webpage.

In one embodiment, the number of links indicated by badge may also belimited in that no two links are from the same domain. This restrictioneffectively weights one web publisher equal to another web publisher.The fact that one web publisher is constantly linking to the displayedwebpage may not be interesting to an end-user or the webmaster of thedisplayed webpage.

In some cases, multiple domains represent the same content, such ashttp://www.ycoolthing.com and http://ycoolthing.com. Therefore, in oneembodiment, the number of links may be restricted to webpages thatcontain unique content. The rationale for this restriction may be thesame as the rationale given for the immediately previous restriction.

In FIG. 3, restrictions 306 include “From All Pages”, which, whenselected lists all pages that contain a link to webpage 302.Restrictions 306 also include the “Except from this domain” restriction,which, when selected, lists all webpages that contain a link to webpagecorresponding to URL 302 except those pages from the domain indicated byURL 302. Restrictions 306 also include the “Except from this subdomain”restriction, which, when selected, lists all webpages that contain alink to URL 302 except those pages from the subdomain indicated by URL302. In this example, “From All Pages” is the default restriction butany of the restrictions, including other restrictions mentioned above,may be the default restriction.

Tag Information

If the value indicated by the badge is a number of user-created tagsthat have been associated with the displayed webpage, then selecting thebadge causes Site Explorer to be generated and displayed on a user'scomputer. Site Explorer would then lists such tags.

In one embodiment, the order in which tags are displayed in SiteExplorer is based, at least partially, on the order in which tags havebeen created. In one embodiment, the order in which tags are displayedin Site Explorer is based, at least partially, on how many of each taghas been associated with the webpage. If two tags are closely related(i.e. “travel” and “traveling”) then the number of the closely-relatedtags may be aggregated (i.e. added together), at least for purposes oforder.

In one embodiment, the viewable attributes (e.g. font size, font type,color) of a particular displayed tag indicates how often the particulardisplayed tag has been associated with the displayed webpage, relativeto other displayed tags.

Advertisements

Some webpages contain slots that are designated for advertisements. Whena webpage is displayed in a user's web browser window, an advertisementmay be dynamically selected to be placed in the slot. The selection isbased, at least partially, on content of the displayed webpage. If thedisplayed webpage is about sports, then the advertisement may be, forexample, about a particular sports drink. As another example, if thedisplayed webpage is about the stock market, then the advertisement maybe about a particular mutual fund.

In some cases, it is useful to know the popularity or trustworthiness ofa particular advertisement. A similar mechanism as described above maybe used for attaching a badge to each advertisement that is displayedalong with the displayed webpage. Thus, when a webpage is loaded into aweb browser window, a request is sent to the entity that provides theadvertisement. A value (e.g., contained in a badge) associated with anadvertisement may indicate 1) a number of links that correspond tolinking webpages that contain a link to an advertisement webpagecorresponding to the advertisement, 2) a number of user-created tagsthat are associated with the advertisement webpage, or 3) a trust rankthat a web crawler, which is associated with the entity that receivesthe request, associates with the advertisement webpage. The trust rankmay be based on content of the advertisement webpage and/or user-createdtags that have been associated with the advertisement webpage.

In one embodiment, when multiple advertisements are displayed on awebpage, there may be a single badge that represents the combined trustvalue of all the advertisements displayed on the webpage. This may helpthe user determine the quality of the webpage as well as theadvertisements.

In one embodiment, the badge may be a clickable item that, whenselected, opens a Site Explorer, similar to the Site Explorer describedabove. The Site Explorer may display URLs of webpages that contain linksto the advertisement webpage (or any webpage on the same website of theadvertisement) and/or user-created tags that have been associated withthe advertisement webpage (or any webpage on the same website of theadvertisement).

Hardware Overview

FIG. 5 is a block diagram that illustrates a computer system 500 uponwhich an embodiment of the invention may be implemented. Computer system500 includes a bus 502 or other communication mechanism forcommunicating information, and a processor 504 coupled with bus 502 forprocessing information. Computer system 500 also includes a main memory506, such as a random access memory (RAM) or other dynamic storagedevice, coupled to bus 502 for storing information and instructions tobe executed by processor 504. Main memory 506 also may be used forstoring temporary variables or other intermediate information duringexecution of instructions to be executed by processor 504. Computersystem 500 further includes a read only memory (ROM) 508 or other staticstorage device coupled to bus 502 for storing static information andinstructions for processor 504. A storage device 510, such as a magneticdisk or optical disk, is provided and coupled to bus 502 for storinginformation and instructions.

Computer system 500 may be coupled via bus 502 to a display 512, such asa cathode ray tube (CRT), for displaying information to a computer user.An input device 514, including alphanumeric and other keys, is coupledto bus 502 for communicating information and command selections toprocessor 504. Another type of user input device is cursor control 516,such as a mouse, a trackball, or cursor direction keys for communicatingdirection information and command selections to processor 504 and forcontrolling cursor movement on display 512. This input device typicallyhas two degrees of freedom in two axes, a first axis (e.g., x) and asecond axis (e.g., y), that allows the device to specify positions in aplane.

The invention is related to the use of computer system 500 forimplementing the techniques described herein. According to oneembodiment of the invention, those techniques are performed by computersystem 500 in response to processor 504 executing one or more sequencesof one or more instructions contained in main memory 506. Suchinstructions may be read into main memory 506 from anothermachine-readable medium, such as storage device 510. Execution of thesequences of instructions contained in main memory 506 causes processor504 to perform the process steps described herein. In alternativeembodiments, hard-wired circuitry may be used in place of or incombination with software instructions to implement the invention. Thus,embodiments of the invention are not limited to any specific combinationof hardware circuitry and software.

The term “machine-readable medium” as used herein refers to any mediumthat participates in providing data that causes a machine to operate ina specific fashion. In an embodiment implemented using computer system500, various machine-readable media are involved, for example, inproviding instructions to processor 504 for execution. Such a medium maytake many forms, including but not limited to, non-volatile media,volatile media, and transmission media. Non-volatile media includes, forexample, optical or magnetic disks, such as storage device 510. Volatilemedia includes dynamic memory, such as main memory 506. Transmissionmedia includes coaxial cables, copper wire and fiber optics, includingthe wires that comprise bus 502. Transmission media can also take theform of acoustic or light waves, such as those generated duringradio-wave and infra-red data communications.

Common forms of machine-readable media include, for example, a floppydisk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, or any other magneticmedium, a CD-ROM, any other optical medium, punchcards, papertape, anyother physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, and EPROM,a FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave asdescribed hereinafter, or any other medium from which a computer canread.

Various forms of machine-readable media may be involved in carrying oneor more sequences of one or more instructions to processor 504 forexecution. For example, the instructions may initially be carried on amagnetic disk of a remote computer. The remote computer can load theinstructions into its dynamic memory and send the instructions over atelephone line using a modem. A modem local to computer system 500 canreceive the data on the telephone line and use an infra-red transmitterto convert the data to an infra-red signal. An infra-red detector canreceive the data carried in the infra-red signal and appropriatecircuitry can place the data on bus 502. Bus 502 carries the data tomain memory 506, from which processor 504 retrieves and executes theinstructions. The instructions received by main memory 506 mayoptionally be stored on storage device 510 either before or afterexecution by processor 504.

Computer system 500 also includes a communication interface 518 coupledto bus 502. Communication interface 518 provides a two-way datacommunication coupling to a network link 520 that is connected to alocal network 522. For example, communication interface 518 may be anintegrated services digital network (ISDN) card or a modem to provide adata communication connection to a corresponding type of telephone line.As another example, communication interface 518 may be a local areanetwork (LAN) card to provide a data communication connection to acompatible LAN. Wireless links may also be implemented. In any suchimplementation, communication interface 518 sends and receiveselectrical, electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital datastreams representing various types of information.

Network link 520 typically provides data communication through one ormore networks to other data devices. For example, network link 520 mayprovide a connection through local network 522 to a host computer 524 orto data equipment operated by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) 526.ISP 526 in turn provides data communication services through the worldwide packet data communication network now commonly referred to as the“Internet” 528. Local network 522 and Internet 528 both use electrical,electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital data streams. Thesignals through the various networks and the signals on network link 520and through communication interface 518, which carry the digital data toand from computer system 500, are exemplary forms of carrier wavestransporting the information.

Computer system 500 can send messages and receive data, includingprogram code, through the network(s), network link 520 and communicationinterface 518. In the Internet example, a server 530 might transmit arequested code for and application program through Internet 528, ISP526, local network 522 and communication interface 518.

The received code may be executed by processor 504 as it is received,and/or stored in storage device 510, or other non-volatile storage forlater execution. In this manner, computer system 500 may obtainapplication code in the form of a carrier wave.

In the foregoing specification, embodiments of the invention have beendescribed with reference to numerous specific details that may vary fromimplementation to implementation. Thus, the sole and exclusive indicatorof what is the invention, and is intended by the applicants to be theinvention, is the set of claims that issue from this application, in thespecific form in which such claims issue, including any subsequentcorrection. Any definitions expressly set forth herein for termscontained in such claims shall govern the meaning of such terms as usedin the claims. Hence, no limitation, element, property, feature,advantage or attribute that is not expressly recited in a claim shouldlimit the scope of such claim in any way. The specification and drawingsare, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than arestrictive sense.

1. A method comprising performing a machine-executed operation involvinginstructions, wherein the machine-executed operation is at least one of:A) sending said instructions over transmission media; B) receiving saidinstructions over transmission media; C) storing said instructions ontoa machine-readable storage medium; and D) executing the instructions;wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by oneor more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform thesteps of: receiving, from a process associated with a particularwebpage, a request to display a value on said particular webpage,wherein said value is selected from a group consisting of: a number oflinks from linking webpages to said particular webpage; a number of tagsthat have been associated with said particular webpage by users who havevisited said particular webpage, wherein each tag is (a) one or morewords and (b) created by a user to describe content of the particularwebpage; and a trust rank that a web crawler, which is associated withan entity that receives the request, associates with said particularwebpage, wherein the trust rank is based, at least in part, onuser-created tags that have been associated with said particularwebpage; in response to said request, sending said value toward a webbrowser application for said web browser application to be display saidvalue on said webpage.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein: providing saidvalue to be displayed on said particular webpage includes providing aclickable item to be displayed on said particular webpage; and saidinstructions are instructions which, when executed by one or moreprocessors, further cause the one or more processors to perform thesteps of: receiving an indication that the clickable item has beenselected; and in response to the indication, providing a new page to bedisplayed that contains at least one of (a) Uniform Resource Locators(URLs) of a subset of said linking webpages and (b) a subset of saidtags.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the URLs are ordered based onlinking webpages that most recently added a link to said particularwebpage.
 4. The method of claim 2, wherein the URLs are ordered based ontrust rank of each of the linking webpages corresponding to the URLs. 5.The method of claim 2, wherein said instructions are instructions which,when executed by one or more processors, further cause the one or moreprocessors to perform the step of, for each link of said links,providing, to be displayed on said new page, at least one of (a) anchortext from the corresponding linking webpage of said each link and (b)text from the corresponding linking webpage that is adjacent to saideach link.
 6. The method of claim 2, wherein said instructions areinstructions which, when executed by one or more processors, furthercause the one or more processors to perform the step of providing a setof keywords to be displayed on said new page, wherein the set ofkeywords includes at least one of (a) anchor text from a subset of saidlinking webpages and (b) multiple tags that have been associated withsaid particular webpage.
 7. The method of claim 2, wherein the subset ofsaid tags are ordered based on the most recently created tags.
 8. Themethod of claim 2, wherein the subset of said tags are ordered based onthe frequency of each unique tag or closely related tags.
 9. The methodof claim 1, wherein: said value indicates a number of links from linkingwebpages to said particular webpage; and the links are determined fromsearching substantially the entire World Wide Web.
 10. The method ofclaim 1, wherein: said value indicates a number of links from linkingwebpages to said particular webpage; and the corresponding linkingwebpages are limited to a certain category of webpages.
 11. The methodof claim 1, wherein: said value indicates a number of links from linkingwebpages to said particular webpage; and the corresponding linkingwebpages are limited to webpages that are not owned by the owner of saidparticular webpage.
 12. The method of claim 1, wherein: said valueindicates a number of links from linking webpages to said particularwebpage; and each corresponding linking webpage is from a differentdomain.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein: said value indicates anumber of links from linking webpages to said particular webpage; andeach corresponding linking webpage contains content different from everyother corresponding linking webpage.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein:said instructions are instructions which, when executed by one or moreprocessors, further cause the one or more processors to perform the stepof providing, in response to a change in the number of links or in thenumber of tags, an updated value indicating said change to be displayedon said particular webpage.
 15. The method of claim 1, wherein: thevalue is displayed within a graphic on said particular webpage; and saidinstructions are instructions which, when executed by one or moreprocessors, further cause the one or more processors to perform the stepof modifying the appearance of said graphic.
 16. A method comprisingperforming a machine-executed operation involving instructions, whereinthe machine-executed operation is at least one of: A) sending saidinstructions over transmission media; B) receiving said instructionsover transmission media; C) storing said instructions onto amachine-readable storage medium; and D) executing the instructions;wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by oneor more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform thesteps of: receiving a request to provide a set of one or moreadvertisements to be displayed on a particular webpage; providing theset of advertisements to be displayed on said particular webpage; andproviding a value, to be displayed on said particular webpage, for eachadvertisement in the set, wherein said value is selected from the groupconsisting of: a number of links from linking webpages that link to anadvertisement webpage corresponding to said each advertisement; a numberof tags that have been associated with said advertisement webpage byusers who have visited said particular webpage, wherein each tag is (a)one or more words and (b) created by a user to describe content of saidadvertisement webpage; and a trust rank that a web crawler, which isassociated with an entity that receives the request, associates withsaid advertisement webpage, wherein the trust rank is based, at least inpart, on user-created tags that have been associated with saidadvertisement webpage.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein eachadvertisement in the set comprises a link to the advertisement webpageof said advertisement.
 18. The method of claim 16, wherein: providingsaid value for each advertisement in the set includes providing aclickable item to be displayed on said webpage; and said instructionsare instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, furthercause the one or more processors to perform the steps of: receiving anindication that the clickable has been selected; and in response to theindication, providing a new page that contains at least one of (a)Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) of a subset of said linking webpages or(b) a subset of said tags.
 19. A method comprising performing amachine-executed operation involving instructions, wherein themachine-executed operation is at least one of: A) sending saidinstructions over transmission media; B) receiving said instructionsover transmission media; C) storing said instructions onto amachine-readable storage medium; and D) executing the instructions;wherein said instructions are instructions which, when executed by oneor more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform thesteps of: receiving, from a process associated with a particularwebpage, a request to display a clickable item on said particularwebpage; providing said clickable item to be displayed on saidparticular webpage; receiving an indication that the clickable item hasbeen selected; and in response to said indication, providing a new pageto be displayed that contains at least one of (a) URLs corresponding toa subset of linking webpages that contain a link to said particularwebpage, (b) a subset of tags that have been associated with saidparticular webpage, wherein each tag is one or more words and is createdby a user, who has visited said particular webpage, to describe contentof said particular webpage, and (c) other information relevant to theparticular webpage.
 20. The method of claim 19, wherein: if the new pagecontains URLs corresponding to a subset of linking webpages, then theURLs are ordered based on linking webpages that most recently added alink to said particular webpage; and if the new page contains a subsetof tags that have been associated with said particular webpage, then thesubset of tags are ordered based on the most recently created tags. 21.The method of claim 19, wherein: the new page contains URLscorresponding to a subset of linking webpages; and the URLs are orderedbased on trust rank of each of the linking webpages corresponding to theURLs.
 22. The method of claim 19, wherein: the new page contains URLscorresponding to a subset of linking webpages; and said instructions areinstructions which, when executed by one or more processors, furthercause the one or more processors to perform the step of, for each URL ofsaid URLs, providing, to be displayed on said new page, at least one of(a) anchor text from the linking webpage corresponding to said each URLand (b) text from the corresponding linking webpage that is adjacent tosaid anchor text.
 23. The method of claim 19, wherein: the new pagecontains URLs corresponding to a subset of linking webpages; and saidinstructions are instructions which, when executed by one or moreprocessors, further cause the one or more processors to perform the stepof providing a set of keywords to be displayed on said new page, whereinthe set of keywords includes at least one of (a) anchor text from saidsubset of linking webpages and (b) multiple tags that have beenassociated with said particular webpage.
 24. The method of claim 19,wherein: new page contains a subset of tags that have been associatedwith said particular webpage; and the subset of said tags are orderedbased on the frequency of each unique tag or closely related tags. 25.The method of claim 19, wherein: the new page contains URLscorresponding to a subset of linking webpages; and the URLs aredetermined from searching substantially the entire World Wide Web. 26.The method of claim 19, wherein: the new page contains URLscorresponding to a subset of linking webpages; and said subset oflinking webpages are limited to a certain category of webpages.
 27. Themethod of claim 19, wherein: the new page contains URLs corresponding toa subset of linking webpages; and said subset of linking webpages arelimited to webpages that are not owned by the owner of said particularwebpage.
 28. The method of claim 19, wherein: the new page contains URLscorresponding to a subset of linking webpages; and each linking webpageof said subset is from a different domain.
 29. The method of claim 19,wherein: the new page contains URLs corresponding to a subset of linkingwebpages; and each linking webpage of said subset contains contentdifferent from every other linking webpage of said subset.
 30. Themethod of claim 19, wherein the clickable item displayed on saidparticular webpage includes at least one of (a) a number of links fromlinking webpages that link to said particular webpage, and (b) a numberof said tags.
 31. The method of claim 19, wherein said instructions areinstructions which, when executed by one or more processors, furthercause the one or more processors to perform the step of modifying theappearance of the clickable item.